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Jamie Wilson recently posted this LOLCeleb to a list I'm on. Brilliant!
Update: Apparently some backwards people don't get the reference. See Wikipedia iz in ur brain, knowing your stuffs!!1!!.
15 Oct 2008 23:44 [category: /politix] #
So now that the free market absolutists have become interventionist socialists, are they moving from the economic equivalent of survival of the fittest to some kind of intelligent design theory?
On that note, Colbert gets Business Syphilis. Hilarious!
15 Oct 2008 15:02 [category: /politix] #
A while back I blogged about fridge efficiency and my idea for improving it by creating airflow over the condensors. Lance at the ATA didn't seem to think it would be effective without forced air, though since publication I've received some emails saying it will improve efficiency up to 30%, without complicated active ventilation.
As part of the Food for the Future Fair last Saturday, we took the tour of Michael Mobbs' Sustainable House. We've been there before. The biggest mistake he mentions is his fridge selection and lack of passive ventilation incorporated into the design. With a fairly small gap under the flooring, the layout of the joists meant that when he retrofitted a grill in, there wasn't much airflow.
We don't have the low floor problem, so I think I'll ensure this is in our design. We'll probably also chuck our massively-inefficient fridge and buy a better one, though I'm kinda hooked on the ice maker now.
Mobbs suggested the best approach was to have a cupboard with the fridge door attached to the door, with a grill 25% larger than the fridge on the floor and some way of venting at the top of the cupboard. That way you'll get year-round ventilation without losing room heat in Winter. I like that idea a lot!
15 Oct 2008 10:06 [category: /diy] #
On Saturday NSW local councils (or at least the ones that haven't been dissolved) had their elections. I was handing out material for The Greens in St Peters and one of the voters asked me how we were directing preferences. This got me thinking about how the votes are counted, and I'm still no wiser.
The ballot paper was arranged with parties or groups along the top and, beneath the line, the candidates for those groups. Voters were instructed to number either above the line or below the line, and I seem to remember to number as many boxes as they wished. Confusingly for those of us used to above-the-line voting in Federal Senate elections, the ALP how-to-vote suggested voting 1 in the ALP group and 2 in the "independent" group, above-the-line.
First step was to go into the polling place and ask the person in charge. She didn't know how it worked. When I got home, I tried looking it up on the Electoral Commission NSW site and didn't come out any the wiser, though it appeared to be a straight optional preferential system. Then on election night Antony Green's results included a quota column, which got me very confused, because that's something normally associated with our Senate elections, which are proportional representation (by state).
Digging a little deeper, I discover that Optional Preferential is used for popularly elected mayors (a la Sydney, Byron Bay etc) and council wards with two or fewer council positions. Wards with three or more council positions get Proportional Representation. Helpfully, the Electoral Commission site gives a good rundown on proportional representation systems, but doesn't mention which system is used for NSW local government elections!
So I have two things that confuse me here. First is how are preferences distributed for above-the-line voters? Since there was no list of preference flows at the polling place, as you get with Senate elections, I presume it's just numbered down the list of candidates in that group list.
Next is how are quotas transferred? For example in Central Ward of Marrickville Council we seem to have 1.44 quotas in the current count. What happens to the 0.44 quota in Group C if they don't make it over the line? If it's optional preferential, if the voter didn't continue from that group, are the votes thrown away? Wouldn't this lead to the full quota not being filled?
You would imagine this kind of information would be kinda essential for the Electoral Commission to disseminate. I'm sure the counting handbook tells the returning officers how this works, but it's not available online.
Anyone got any better information about how this works?
Update: Rich points out this page (which I'm sure wasn't on the site this morning, but perhaps I missed it) which answers my second question. It's a quota-based system, with a formula similar to the Senate in federal elections. Digging further I found this page which answers my first question. Above-the-line votes go down the list for the numbered groups, as I expected.
15 Sep 2008 16:58 [category: /politix] #
Geo: -33.85967,151.207025
Udo
van den Heuvel is visiting and would like to do a key signing
to improve the web of trust. I've suggested The Australian in
The Rocks where I tend to take overseas tourists because they have
good beer and pizzas topped with both our two national animals, in a
good central location. If you're coming, please bring identification that matches your key
and a bunch of little slips of paper with your key details and
fingerprint on it, to enable people to verify your identity and key.
I'll be following the "informal"
method. Friday 12th September
18:00 for 18:30 key signing, then beer and pizza.
The Australian,
100
Cumberland Street, The Rocks
Probably the back room "ladies" bar. I look roughly like this.
15 Aug 2008 10:08 [category: /geek] #
I just bought some coffee beans at the phenomenally-busy Campos Coffee on Missenden Road. I had to write down the description to share with you.
The Obama Blend
Great deptch of character, strong and eloquent. This very appealing blend unites coffees from Africa and the Americas to produce a cup which has gotten us excited. Formidable middle palate flavours, syrupy with an uplifting finish. Excellent choice for going forward and ideal for those interested in change.
I didn't try the McCain blend. Don't think I'd like the thin, weak, old-fashioned bitter flavour.
15 Aug 2008 08:38 [category: /politix] #
Spotted this morning walking through Sydney Uni, some Catholic pilgrims (the lanyard and pass is a giveaway) taking a photo of... the wall of HK Ward gymnasium. Weird. Maybe they saw Mary?
I'm trying to work out which annoying t-shirt to wear handing out condoms on Saturday, now that we're allowed annoy Catholics.
The options are:
And
Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes perfect sense.
The former has the advantage that I already own it. The latter I could make pretty easily.
15 Jul 2008 17:12 [category: /politix] #
We finally got our gas point installed last Thursday so we've now got our excellent gas heater. It's the Paloma PG-711FRN which is the one that scored best in the Choice comparison of unflued gas heaters. So far so good -- our house is toast warm.
To help keep the heat in, I've been weather stripping around the house. All the windows now have a weather strip to stop draughts. This afternoon I attached a strip to the front door. It flaps down when you close the door to block any draughts, and will also keep dust and crap out of our hallway.
Last weekend I built and planted out this raised garden bed. It's a bunch of railway sleepers with some very long bolts holding it together. Planted out are broad beans, kale, silverbeet, parsnips, chives, sprouting broccoli and four types of garlic. Yum!
15 Jun 2008 18:02 [category: /house] #
We've just saved $5,000 by deciding not to buy ducted heating for our house. Why were we thinking ducted heating? Well it's funny how the mind works, you end up on a path a long way from where you started. I'll step through it.
The house stays pretty cool in Summer, but it's pretty cold in Winter, so we were thinking heating. I've lived in far too many shitty rentals with draughts, no insulation and the only heating option being expensive, inefficient electric. London spoilt us for never being cold when at home.
So I started looking at gas heaters, the unflued portable kind, which come in around or under $1,000. Choice has a review of them and points out that they release CO and NOx, as well as water vapour, and the emissions can be bad for asthmatics (like Holly).
So I stepped up my thinking to a flued gas heater, to go in the fireplace in the lounge room. I didn't want one of these gas fire things that have the look of a real fire but don't actually do much int he way of heat. I want real heat, so I was looking at the nice fan-forced heaters. These start around $3,000 and go all the way up.
Now my parents have a brilliant ducted gas heating system in their house. It's lovely in every room in Winter. Prices for a small house like ours are apparently from $5,000, which was less than double what we were prepared to pay for the flued heating. You see how your mind steps up a notch without realising?
Anyway yesterday the quote came in for the ducted heating. $6270 including GST for a five-star efficient ducted system. We've ended up a long way from the grand or so I was originally thinking of. It forced something of a reality check.
If we spend a grand on a heater (actually should be a bit less) we can spend the rest on double glazing and upgrading our roof insulation. This has major additional benefits of Summer insulation and keeping out aircraft noise. To be completely serious, you only really need heating in a Sydney house for a month or two of the year. Nice to have for perhaps another month. Spending all that money for something used for a quarter of the year isn't sensible.
It's been an interesting journey, and has taught me that when you're looking at things you need to remember where you started. Go back to it and compare with the gold-plated option you're now contemplating.
15 May 2008 09:52 [category: /house] #
It used to be the best guarantee of bestseller status for a publisher was to be listed on the Catholic Church's Index Liborum Prohibitorum. These days, it seems you can engage an assortment of wowsers to get the publicity you want. Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ was helped enormously due to the protests against its release.
Goat Boy are the latest to mine this rich seam, prompting the usual outcries from the usual suspects. Yes, they're tasteless. But they're pretty bloody funny too.
What I wanna know is this: is there a talent agency for all these self-proclaimed guardians of moral uprightness? Can one hire them to ensure the appropriate publicity? If not, they're missing a trick!
Goat Boy's comment about thinking of a papal t-shirt for the World Youth Day boondoggle gave me some ideas. I'm thinking Palpatine myself, given the uncanny likeness. Then again, I'm also thinking about handing out free condoms at the event.
